After breakfast, we climbed back in the van to begin the trek back to Columbo.

Looking down from the entrance at a Hindu temple we stopped at

This was just along a road and not in a big town, but the carvings were all over, elaborate, and beautifully painted, even if chipping a bit in spots.

Lal made a donation.

We stopped at an historic old house and enormous grounds that is now home to a Catholic seminary. I was able to see 3 of the rooms in the house that have been turned to museum. The rest of the place are rooms for the seminarians and the grounds were just gorgeous. My camera batteries were just about out of juice, so I got fewer photos than I’d have liked.

These poinsettias lined a fence in a Catholic monistery on the grounds of an old English manor house. I was able to tour a small portion of the house, but the rest is for the students and classes.

Once we got to Columbo we headed for a museum, but since it was New Moon Festival (yes, they have this for every new moon!) it was closed and so were all the other places I wanted to see.

beach in Colombo

Colonial building in Colombo

Under the portico of one of the colonial buildings.

I loved this but wasn’t able to get a very good photo. The UN in Sri Lanka has adopted 17 sustainable development goals and they’re attached to the side of the building.

We did manage to find another Catholic church of historic significance open in Columbo and I wandered around there for a bit.

Catholic church in Colombo

Small grotto just outside the catholic church

Lal then decided to drive along the coast to Negambo. Along the way there was an old fort we stopped at as well, but the police still use the area and it didn’t look too welcoming for a long walk.

Old Fort entrance in Colombo

There are canals throughout this city and they were built by the Portuguese, which is where the Catholic influence comes from.

Canals lined the street in Colombo.

Sri Lanka has been dominated by many different countries and cultures, but they do a magnificent job of modeling peaceful and neighborly coexistence with each other.

Since there was nothing else open to see, we went to Lal’s house. It is a tradition for him to take his guests for a final meal at his house to meet his family before heading to the airport. His family are lovely people and I particularly enjoyed talking to his son, who is part of the family tour business. He had some interesting historical insights. He feels that Sri Lanka is unique for such a small island that has been dominated by so many different cultures. It is the only place in the world that Sinhalese is spoken. He said that this bespeaks an advanced culture that is not given credit when visiting the historical sites. He gave very convincing examples, which I am not conversant enough with to include here. However, it is quite a feat in my mind even to have hung onto their unique language.

After wonderful conversation, I ate with Lal and then he took me to the airport. The line for my Emirates flight was snaking all over the airport and was finally broken into two, both of which were not moving. When it finally began to move I started to worry about making my flight, and I had arrived 4 hours prior to departure! I made it through security and onto the plane in time for a slightly delayed departure. Smooth flight to Dubai and a 6-hour layover. I finally arrived in Kuwait around 10 pm and was back home by 11:30 pm!

What a glorious country. I think it comes pretty close to paradise, and I didn’t even go to the beaches!

My itinerary originally had me going from there to Galle on the southern coast, which has an old Dutch fort. However, Lal has a bungalow up in the tea plantation area and offered me the option of going there instead. I opted for that and enjoyed the many waterfalls along the way.

Misty view, but there are a couple of waterfalls there.

Looking down at a couple of lakes.

Some serious terracing here on the hillsides.

Roadside waterfall. There were several areas like this where a hose ran from the running water to the side of the street. People used the water for washing (themselves and cars) and to collect for cooking and drinking.

Another fall

We visited Nawara Elia, the highest city in Sri Lanka and visited a tea factory called Blue Field. The equipment in this factory is 100 years old. I was stunned to learn that tea must be hand-picked because they only use the “new” leaves. Women are pickers, not men, and are expected to pick a minimum of 20 kg/day. The leaves are then dried using fans as they lay on a screen trough, and then fermented, and then dried again.

This whole hillside (except the trees of course) are tea bushes. The red speck is a woman picking tea…rain or shine, 20 kilos a day.

These long troughs have a screen bottom that allows air to get to the tea leaves to dry out.

I had no idea that tea was fermented!

This device sort of toasts the leaves

Dried tea leaves come down the shoot into the hopper and drop down to be ground.

Different types of tea come from different leaves as well as different drying, fermenting, and grinding types.

Here my guide is showing the different types of tea. In her fingers are some tea leaves.

After my tour, I was able to enjoy a nice cup of tea there after the tour.

A lovely cuppa tea!

The final push was up to the highest city in Sri Lanka and then to Hopetale where Lal has a place.

A roadside Hindu temple

This is the farming region in Sri Lanka where they had till the land and they were growing all sorts of things besides tea: broccoli, cauliflower, beets, carrots, onions, corn, to name a few.

There was a spectacular view from out the door of my room and I enjoyed it with juice and a book.

The view from my doorway in Hopetale

Then I spent a little time in the lobby and a couple from France wandered in for dinner. They are doing a world tour for a year and then will return to their jobs! They were very enjoyable to talk with. They pointed out that they had been oversimplifying their English to the point of being grammatically incorrect sometimes in an effort to be understood. Their English was very good. It feels however, presumptuous of us to assume (as I mostly do as I travel) that everyone can speak English. It is true that most people do, unless you are in really rural areas but it feels arrogant to make the assumption. I find it amazing that so many people around the world and in all countries are able to communicate pretty well in English. I don’t think they meant to be disparaging but were thankful for an opportunity to speak with a native speaker and work on their own. Anyway, through our dinner conversation we discovered we had visited the same tea plantation and there are many! After dinner I went for a shower and my book and bed. It was a very noisy night as the street right outside my room seemed to have lots of traffic, both pedestrian and vehicular, and dogs barking.

Up and out after breakfast, but I wasn’t up to the climb to Dambulla Cave Temple, so we just stopped and took a couple photos. Then we headed toward Kandy. We stopped at a few Hindu temples as we approached Kandy.

Just inside the entrance to Hindu temple.

Shrine inside the temple.

Carved figures of the multitude of gods.

Ceiling decoration with light bulbs dangling down.

Many small shrines line the walls around the inside of the temple and people leave gifts of food and lotus blossoms in front as they pray.

They look quite life-like.

From inside I could see part of the temple-top outside. It is common for most buildings to be open to the outside (few buildings are air-conditioned).

So colorful, and I love the elephant trunks knotted together.

Another shrine

From a doorway in back, I looked out at this.

The front entrance/exit.

On the way we also stopped at a wood carving factory and I saw the multitude of woods they have in Sri Lanka and use to carve anything from furniture to masks. They use the wood of what we call the rainbow tree to make the natural paints. It was fascinating to watch as he shaved some sawdust off of a piece and then added hot water to it (red), then rubbed lime/lemon on a strip of iron and stirred it in to make a blue/purple, then sprinkle in a little lime powder and stir to make a yellow/gold. Coconut milk is used for white and boiled to make black and green is made using leaves. They had people sitting at tables working on various carvings. Of course I bought a mask!

Workers at the wood factory

My mask! It represents so many protections: from snake bite, from 18 different diseases, devils, and blessings: prosperity, health, happiness. It’s hanging next to my door in my apartment now.

When we arrived in Kandy

The lake in Kandy!

A narrower part of the lake in Kandy.

we stopped at a Batik Factory where the process was demonstrated. It was also really interesting to see what a difference it made in how well the fabric (silk or cotton) took the color to run it through a bath of either vinegar or salt before putting it in the dye bath. The process is exactly the same as I use for the Ukrainian Easter eggs. Even the tool they use to apply small details looks like the one I use to apply the wax on the eggs.

Batik factory in Kandy with samples of each step and an illustration of the process.

We also stopped at a spice and herbal garden. It was so interesting to see a rubber tree up close and personal and I had never seen what the pepper plant looks like so I enjoyed that too. So many different herbs and spices all grown in one garden area: cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, and vanilla to name a few. They brew/mix and of course, sell all manner of salves and potions, scents and medicinal treatments.

This lovely man was my guide through the spice garden. He is holding either a nutmeg seed or a rubber seed.

Finally, a stop at the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens. These gorgeous gardens were first planned out in the mid-1700s. They cover about 150 acres of trees, lawns and flowering shrubs, including 50 acres of arboretum with more than 10,000 trees. In 1821, under British rule, the park became a botanical garden. It is the largest of Sri Lanka’s three main gardens. There was an Orchid house, which has more than 300 varieties. Here the thing that stood out the most to me were the “bat trees.” I called them this because there were literally hundreds of fruit bats roosting in them. They were noisy as they jostled for spots or just hung from branches. There were many within the arboretum.

Oh, just an elephant walking on the side of the road.

Peradeniya Gardens entrance

A large pond covered by small water plants at Peradeniya Gardens just in front of the orchid house.

Yellow and deep orange orchids

Speckled orchid, and notice the greyish colored one beneath

These are some really OLD trees in the garden. This group (German, I think) were trying to organize a photo with all of them girdling the base of the tree.

Bat trees!!

It’s hard to believe the trees could hold all the bats that were in them!

Such a huge umbrella of a tree across the enormous circular lawn.

Then up a VERY narrow road to the hotel where I had a little time to relax before dinner on the roof top.

I awoke the next morning and Lal was knocking at my door. He had my suitcase!! They delivered it five (5!!) hours away from the airport at 3 am! I was utterly impressed. What service! I dressed, had breakfast (including fresh mangoes from trees on the property). Then we headed out to visit some of the temple ruins in Anaradhapura. (Had I realized how often I would be taking my shoes off and on, I would have worn flip-flops and worked to toughen the soles of my feet before going.) Sri Lanka is a predominantly Buddhist country and this area especially had vast ruins of a large and bustling priest population. Here’s what his itinerary said about the ruins of Anuradhapura: the sprawling complex contains a rich collection of archaeological and architectural wonders: enormous dagobas, soaring brick towers, ancient pools and crumbling temples, built during Anuradhapura’s thousand years of rule over Sri Lanka.

Jetavana Stupa with scaffolding around the very top piece.

carvings in the stone walkway around the stupa

elephants alternate with decorative tiles on several tiers of the wall

This tiny little fairy flower was dotted among the grass surrounding the stupa

This tree! Supporting roots? cascade down from the branches to nestle in to the ground at the base.

This was one, and the other was a mirror image. The woman in white at the waters edge had bread she was feeding to the fish in the pond.

Lotus flower offerings in front of the buddha

My chariot for the week.

Abhayagiri Stupa in Anuradhapura. There are many of these stupas!

At the base of the round domes, there are these tents and inside are many depictions of buddha from youth to old age, and always one reclining like this. Again, lotus flowers laid along the edge.

This pond seems to be the inverse of the stupa it is near.

More typical of more modern stupas

By about 11 am we were heading toward Sigiriya. On the way I had an appointment for an Ayurvedic Medical Treatment (full body massage and steam bath). A broad variety of natural herbs form the main ingredients of Ayurvedic medicines, which make it absolutely free of side effects. This practice has been perfected over centuries and claims to have remedies even for those ailments that defy time and modern understanding. I was totally oily, including my hair upon leaving, so I was happy to go to the hotel and get a shower (cold to luke warm).

The Golden Buddha, which I stopped to see on the way out of Anaradhapura.

The Golden Temple. The doors lead you into the dragons mouth.

At 4:00 we headed for Sigiriya Lion Rock. This rock fortress is regarded as the eighth wonder of the ancient world. It is supposed to have been built by King Kassapa in the 5th century AD and was a royal citadel for more than a year. It is a complex of buildings, part-royal palace, part fortified town, and water gardens on par with the best in the ancient world. This is a magnificent and unique architectural feat on the part of the ancient Sinhalese. Fitbit said it was 63 flights of stairs and my feet said it was at least 100! I didn’t want to descend in the dark so I started down just before the sun reached the horizon. It was dusk when I got back to the parking lot and we headed back to the hotel and dinner.

Out the window on the way to Siguriya. There’s a large pond in the field that is covered in lotus flowers.

The sign for the entrance to the road for my massage. I had to put all of my belongings in a locker so got no photos of the actual huts in which the massage and steam bath took place. No mirrors either…probably thankful for that.

Upon arrival at the hotels I was always offered juice. This was watermelon!

View from my bedroom of the rock I would climb later.

In the center of this photo there is a small monitor that caught something and began eating it immediately after I took this photo.

Sigiriya, in all of its daunting splendor!

Stairs, stairs, and more stairs; plus they were rough and not of the same depth or width. AND often coated with sand.

Every time I got to a landing I looked up and didn’t feel that much closer to the top.

View from the bridge before the spiral staircase.

On the bridge heading toward the spiral stairs. It was quite windy up here.

This sign was amusing to me, especially coming from Kuwait. After doing it, I totally agree with the admonishment.

Looking down on some of the ruins. This is very high up, but not yet at the top.

After the spiral stairs.

On a plateau and large grounds area just before the final push to the top. This is supposed to be a lion’s paw. There is one on each side of this area, but note there are only 3 toes.

Daredevil playing on the railing.

Sun beginning to set from the top.

There were ruins of quite a large palace on the very top, and this pool.

Looking down at the feet and plateau area. It was still a long way up to the top from there.

The sun got a little further down and I decided it was time to high tail it or have to do it in the dark.

A different route led down and I saw these caves.

It was a beautiful area, and thankfully had some places that sort-of leveled off.

There was a place going up with two giant boulders leaning together and this was coming down.

I think this was called Cobra Hood Cave, but I think it looks a bit like a monkey’s head.

More rocks holding each other up. I wished I ‘d had someone to help hold me up.

And done! Sigiriya – The Lion Rock

I was really ready for an early night, but am glad I pushed myself to do it.

I landed in Colombo at a little after 1:00 pm, but sadly, my luggage did not arrive with me. I filed a report, but didn’t have any local contact information. I finally headed out of the airport at about 3:30 pm and hoped that my tour guide would still be waiting for me. He was!! Lal had a beautiful lei for me and it smelled divine! I exchanged some money and then we went to the van. We called the airlines to give them his contact information regarding my suitcase. What I didn’t realize was that there was another five hours of driving to get to Anaradhapura. Finally we arrived after a stop to pick up some toothpaste and toothbrush and checked in to the hotel, and then I had dinner. I was served tons of food (rice and curry) looking out at the pool and a night sky through mango trees. I invited Lal to eat with me. He declined, but sat and kept me company (this was to be the standard practice until the last couple days).

Sri Lanka from the plane

Sooo green! This is probably mostly rice.

Dinner the first night. Chicken curry with SO many toppings, all of which were delicious!

Breakfast the next morning included the tiny little banana, watermelon, papaya, pineapple, and I can’t remember what the apple like fruit was.

The view from my table with their squirrels (looking very much like chipmunks, but skittering through the trees.) in the mango trees.

So lush and tropical

This tree reminded me of the monkey tree at Lake Stevens, but this one wasn’t so fierce.

Plumeria everywhere!

The majority of roads in Sri Lanka are narrow and only two lanes (sometimes only one, and quite hair raising when you meet oncoming traffic). So, the speed limit is lower and it takes longer to get anyplace.

The Cottey girls with the Rosie’s at the Rosie the Riveter Museum in San Francisco.

Alley in San Francisco with murals on all the walls

There was even Maxx from Where the Wild Things Are

Tales of struggle and hope

Framed by hugs living plants and vines

on garage doors

and there were flowers

Monseñor Oscar Romero

Mosaic artwork all the way up this staircase

It was really high up

And then there was this one too

More mosaics that started with in the ground dwellers and ended with the sky

above ground dwellers and the sky was after the slight turn int he stairs

Sausalito, CA

A few dinosaurs and critters at the French Connection in Pittsboro, NC

A man and his hawk in Wilmington, NC (this is Parker and it’s not his hawk)

We went to the Serpentarium in Wilmington, NC where this fellow was hanging out. He is NOT stuffed.

Neither were these incredibly poisonous snakes

Floating candles at the Harry Potter book release party

Deer grazing everywhere

I was incredibly remiss in getting photos with friends. I must remember to remedy that next year.

I find it interesting the various routes I find myself on when someone else books my flights. I flew through Newark

What an offer! I had a lovely 20 year old single malt scotch

and then on to Frankfurt to land in Kuwait at about 10 pm on the 10th. Over the next couple days I unpacked and did laundry and then repacked for Sri Lanka. I headed for the airport at about 11:30 pm on the 12th for a flight that was due to leave a bit before 4:00 am. I don’t like to ask Abdul, the taxi driver, to take me places in the middle of the night. 11:30 is late enough and I can easily wait in the airport. I have at least mastered that part of traveling: the wait.

Sheesh! It sure has taken me a long time to get back to this. I have been rather obstinate in my decision to avoid posting. I haven’t been able to pinpoint just why, but here I am again at last.

Our last day and we awoke to rain.

Megan and Shahid taking pictures in the rain

The first on our trip, which flew by, and we got but just a wee taste of this vast and amazing country. Before we had to check out and head for the airport, we visited the National Museum of Iran. We scrambled through the rain to get to there. It begins with displays from prehistoric times and includes pottery, carvings, and other artifacts, which date from at least as far back as 7000 years ago.

Entrance to the museum of Iran. The script is so beautiful.

These are enormous vessels!

The mould and the object from it.

Firing oven

Pottery vessel

obelisk

Inventory of gifts and countries.

I can’t read hieroglyphics, but it caught my eye because of the detail.

I love the cobalt blue color of this pottery.

I believe this is an inventory of gifts brought from other countries. The sign indicates there is a guide for blind people through the museum.

Roses!

The journey to the airport was spent in reflection, exchanging contact information and then suddenly we having to say goodbye to Ali and Majid, our guide and driver. Spending a week with them made them feel almost like family. It was truly a trip of a lifetime!